Paul Doherty - The Darkening Glass

Dunheved, Demontaigu and Sir William Ferrers supported my protest. Warwick stood, hands on hips. Then he pulled a face, raised a hand and stilled the clamour.

‘It is best if you were gone,’ he said. ‘You, Mistress Mathilde, and your companions are free to go where you wish.’

‘I shall stay with my lord Gaveston,’ I replied. ‘My companions also.’

Warwick just shrugged and turned away, muttering something about a wench and a priest being no threat. He didn’t care whether we went or stayed. So began Gaveston’s descent into hell. Warwick intended to move swiftly. The fallen favourite was roped and tied. He’d entered Deddington as a Great Lord; he left like a common felon, dressed only in a soiled nightshirt, a bramble-thorn crown on his head, feet and hands bound. In front of him walked one of Warwick’s men, carrying Gaveston’s once gloriously emblazoned tabard and shield, all besmirched and rent. Our captor was determined that no rescue attempt should be made; we would journey directly and swiftly to his own estates and the mighty fastness of Warwick Castle. Word would soon reach both Pembroke and the king, and Warwick was determined not to be trapped.

On our journey we were kept well away from Gaveston. Our entire cavalcade was ring-bound by Warwick’s soldiers, armed men on horse and foot who swept the highways, thoroughfares and adjoining fields free of all travellers, the curious or anyone who approached even within bowshot. Gaveston was constantly abused. One night he was forced to sleep in a ditch, the next lowered into a pit and held fast by ropes. The favourite now accepted the inevitable. He recovered his dignity, refusing to beg for any mercy or the slightest concession. Once we reached Warwick, the earl had him taken off the nag and forced him to walk through the streets to the approaches of the castle. The townspeople had been summoned by heralds to witness the humiliation. Warwick tied a rope around Gaveston’s waist and processed into the town with the hatless, barefooted royal favourite, staggering behind him. The earl was preceded by heralds, trumpeters and standard-bearers, whilst Gaveston’s arms were worn by a beggar, specially hired, a madcap who imitated Gaveston’s staggering walk, provoking the crowd to more laughter and jeers. The prisoner was pelted with dirt, horse manure and all kinds of filth. Horns were blown, bagpipes wailed. Finally, as a warning of what was to come, just before we left the crowd to climb the steep hill to the gatehouse of Warwick Castle, Gaveston was forced to stand between two forked gibbets either side of the thoroughfare. Each bore the gruesome cadaver of a hanged felon. He was made to acknowledge both corpses to the screech of bagpipes and roars of abuse. The procession then continued. Once inside the castle, Warwick consigned Gaveston to its dungeons, with the stinging remark that he who had called him a dog was now chained up for good. He provided myself, Demontaigu and Dunheved with three dusty chambers high in the keep; his message was stark enough: ‘Stay if you wish, but you are certainly not my honoured guests.’

The following morning, after we’d attended Dunheved’s mass in the small castle chapel, we were confronted outside by a group of Warwick’s henchmen. They bore messages from their master. No one would be allowed to see the prisoner, and it was best if we left. The message was tinged with menace, a quiet threat. I seized the opportunity to persuade Demontaigu and Dunheved that Warwick would not hurt me; it was best if they left and immediately journeyed to York to inform both king and queen. At first Dunheved demurred. Demontaigu was also concerned about my safety. I replied that if I was left alone and vulnerable, Warwick would take special precautions that I was not harmed; he would not wish to incur the queen’s wrath. Dunheved agreed with me. The Dominican had changed since we’d left Scarborough Castle. He was more withdrawn, as if reflecting on something, always busy with his beads, lips mouthing silent prayers. He promised that he would first journey to a nearby Dominican house, where he could ask his good brothers there to keep a watchful eye on what happened at Warwick and so provide whatever help they could. Once his decision was made, he rose from where we were seated at the ale-table in the castle buttery. He clasped my hand, exchanged the kiss of peace, then left without a further word. I followed him to the door and watched as he hastened across the inner bailey towards the great keep.

‘Bertrand,’ I spoke over my shoulder, ‘I want you to go, but I will write a letter.’

‘To whom?’

‘To you, my heart.’ I turned and smiled. ‘Please go to York. Once you are safely in that city, open the letter and do what I ask.’

By noon of that day, both Dunheved and Demontaigu had left. Once they’d gone, Warwick’s chamberlain visited me and insisted that I move to what he called ‘more comfortable quarters’ in the castle guest chamber above the great hall. After that, I was left to my own devices. Food and drink were brought up to my room, whilst I was invited to go down to the communal refectory when the castle bell tolled at dawn, noon and just before dusk.

Warwick ignored me. Now that he had seized Gaveston, he was determined to bring as many of the earls as possible into his plan. They hastened to agree. Red-haired, white-faced Lancaster, Edward’s own cousin, and the earls of Arundel, Hereford and Gloucester arrived like hawks to the feast. They and their households, a horde of armed retainers, clattered through the gatehouse into the bailey, to be greeted by Warwick himself. I mixed with the servants, helping where I could with cuts and scrapes, or offering advice. Once people know you are skilled in physic, they insist on regaling you with the state of their health: what is wrong with them and what can be done. From these I learnt that Warwick was determined to try Gaveston by due process of law, give him what could be called a fair trial, then condemn him to death for treason. To continue the semblance of law, he insisted that two justices holding commissions of oyer and terminer in the adjoining counties, Sir William Inge and Sir Henry Spigurnel, were to be included in his net, and persuaded them to move their court to Warwick Castle.

We had arrived on the twelfth of June; on the seventeenth, Warwick moved to terminate matters. He and the other great earls, accompanied by the two justices, sat in judgement in the great hall. Gaveston, his face shaved, hair all cropped like a felon, was prepared for trial. He was allowed to bathe, and was dressed in a simple tunic of dark blue, loaded with chains and brought to the hall, where his judges sat on a dais behind the high table. They came swiftly to sentence. No one, apart from a few clerks and guards, was allowed to attend or witness. Gaveston was not permitted to speak or plead, remaining gagged throughout his trial. Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, was both judge and prosecutor. He accused Gaveston of a litany of heinous crimes: refusing to stay in exile, stealing and spoiling royal treasure, weakening the Crown, being the source of bad counsel to the king, refusing to obey the ordinances of the earls. The list of charges covered every breach Gaveston had made both in statute law and in the ordinances of the earls. The result was a foregone conclusion. He was summarily condemned to death. Sharp-featured Lancaster summed up the proceedings. He offered Gaveston one concession: because of his dignity as an earl, and more importantly, being brother-in-law to de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, he would not suffer the full rigour of the punishment for treason. Instead of being hanged, drawn and quartered, he would merely be decapitated. Sentence was to be carried out almost immediately. There was nothing I or anyone could do. Pembroke sent the most powerful protests, appealing to the University of Oxford to intervene or mediate. From the rumours sweeping the castle, Edward at York was almost beside himself, dispatching pitiful pleas to the earls, to Philip of France and Pope Clement V at Avignon, all to no avail. The earls were obdurate: Gaveston would die.